As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction.

And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years.

He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and ‘unbridled consumption.’

Fenner told The Australian newspaper that ‘homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years.’

‘A lot of other animals will, too,’ he added.

‘It’s an irreversible situation. I think it’s too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.’

Since humans entered an unofficial scientific period known as the Anthropocene – the time since industrialisation – we have had an effect on the planet that rivals any ice age or comet impact, he said.

Fenner, 95, has won awards for his work in helping eradicate the variola virus that causes smallpox and has written or co-written 22 books.

He announced the eradication of the disease to the World Health Assembly in 1980 and it is still regarded as one of the World Health Organisation’s greatest achievements.

He was also heavily involved in helping to control Australia’s myxomatosis problem in rabbits.

Last year official UN figures estimated that the world’s population is currently 6.8 billion. It is predicted to exceed seven billion by the end of 2011.

Fenner blames the onset of climate change for the human race’s imminent demise.

He said: ‘We’ll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island.

‘Climate change is just at the very beginning. But we’re seeing remarkable changes in the weather already.’

‘The Aborigines showed that without science and the production of carbon dioxide and global warming, they could survive for 40,000 or 50,000 years.

‘But the world can’t. The human species is likely to go the same way as many of the species that we’ve seen disappear.’

Bullshit, the human race will not die any time soon. I’m getting really tired of all the “We are going to die soon!” fear mongering that seems to be really popular right now.

Lets break this article down into parts for easier debunking.

Overpopulation: First overpopulation is a myth don’t believe me, look it up.

Second by 2100 the majority of humans will have left the earth to live in space stations in orbit, hard to believe? Well consider this, we are just a few years away from having an armada of corporately owned commercial spaceships that will take regular people into space. Is it really so far fetched to say that in 90 years we are going to live in space? I don’t think so.

Rampant consumption: Yes we consume way to much crap for our own good but as with overpopulation scientists like Fenner aren’t looking at what technology might bring us in the future.

By 2050 every family will have molecular assemblers in there house to make anything we have ever wanted and for raw materials you can use what ever you want garbage, salt water or dirt.